


Silver Linings

by whittler_of_words



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Pale Romance | Moirallegiance, Sickfic, Troll Gills
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-29
Updated: 2014-04-29
Packaged: 2018-01-21 05:18:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,701
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1539095
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whittler_of_words/pseuds/whittler_of_words
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>...Gamzee Makara just papped you. Tenderly. Passionately. His mitts gently caressed your face while you were losing your shit, in an act of undeniable paleness.</p>
<p>Eridan Ampora knows you’re a mutant, but instead of calling the drones, he decided to help you out, if you’re piecing things together right.</p>
<p>Your whole existence at the moment is basically just a random large number of query sticks with the occasional shout pole thrown in.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Silver Linings

When you first start to get the headaches, you dismiss it as a lack of sleep.

When you start getting hot flashes that leave you sweating one second and shivering the next, you chalk it up to your shitty mutant blood acting up again.

It’s when you start coughing up goopy shit green enough to rival your sopor slime’s ugly hue, when you begin to lose your appetite and things tilt sidewise at the most inopportune times, that you realize you might’ve fucked up, and fucked up _bad._

You just don’t have the _time_ , is the thing. So what if you forget to eat a meal here and there, or sometimes end up falling asleep dry, or forget to wash out the gills that your mutation has afforded you? You’re too busy making sure that Sollux hasn’t managed to drive himself into a permanent coding coma, and that Tavros isn’t having any problems with the douchebag trolls where he lives. Who else is going to make sure that Eridan doesn’t get himself killed during one of his stupid FLARPing campaigns if you won’t? Nobody, that’s fucking who. Then there’s checking up on Terezi and making sure Kanaya hasn’t had a chunk taken out of her by an undead, and the habitual reluctant roleplay with Nepeta, and the sly digs you make at Vriska to ensure that her mom is getting fed enough that she won’t turn around and eat her, and basically a whole bunch of bullshit.

And Gamzee. Don’t even get you _started_ on Gamzee fucking Makara.

Case in point, you simply do not have the time to worry about things like your own basic necessities past ensuring that you don’t bleed in front of anyone, when you have all of these useless motherfuckers to keep in check. Little shits, you swear they act braindead just to get on your God damn nerves.

You’re beginning to realize that it’s a little hard to do, when you’re getting to the point that you can hardly walk in a straight line for more than a couple feet.

A basic search of your symptoms on Trollgle enlighten you to the fact that you are either dying of some painful disease with death imminent, or you’re dying of some painful disease with death being not so imminent. You take a while scrolling through the results in a slight fog before it comes to your attention that, Alternia to Dipshit, you are a MUTANT and half of this stuff doesn’t seem to apply to you anyway.

Crabdad fucks off somewhere, piece of shit lusus, doing you don’t even know what when you need him most. What the fuck are you supposed to do if some random troll just decides to take a stroll into your hive? You certainly can’t defend yourself like this, and red candy blood or not, you’d get culled faster than you could say “weak and helpless”.

You have no way of telling what it is that’s wrong with you, and you sure as fuck aren’t going to do something completely idiotic like ask one of your friends for help. So you do what makes the most sense at the time.

You ignore it.

You manage just fine for a few days. You definitely do not slack off when it comes to keeping in contact with a friend. Or two.

Fuck. You’re not supposed to be feeling this tired, not when you’ve been sleeping so much lately, and you made sure you went to sleep in the ‘coon, too. Guh. How long has it been since you’ve eaten, again? Whatever, you’re not hungry so it couldn’t have been too long. When was the last time you bugged one of your friends, though?

Eventually, laboriously, you drag yourself over to your desk and your husktop. You plop yourself into your chair, dutifully ignoring the way every joint complains against the movement, as well as the fiery burning in your sides you can’t be assed to check, and squint at the over-bright screen.

You look down the list. Aradia, Tavros, Sollux, Nepeta... They can take care of themselves, right? They’re big grown-up trolls. Who else...

Gamzee, of fucking course. You don’t even want to know what the idiot has gotten into while you’ve been elsewhere. Not _indisposed._ Just, elsewhere. Ignoring the flashing notifications telling you of unread messages in other windows, you move to click on Gamzee’s trollhandle.

Something catches in your throat on your next breath in, and you can tell immediately that you’re fucked. Oh look, a coughing fit, and it just keeps going and going, even as you hunch over your desk and bang a fist against your chest to try to loosen it up and let you _breathe._ But you can’t, and as your vision begins to tunnel and your head gets light, too light, you realize that you are completely and utterly terrified.

This is it. This is how you die. Via shitty sickness that you don’t even know the name or cause of because you were too much of a lazy shit to take care of yourself. Your demise will be a warning to wrigglers everywhere; just don’t turn out like Karkat Vantas, may he burn in Hell for the rest of his shitty afterlife.

Aradia will give you so much shit when your ghost inevitably goes to haunt her. You wonder if those notifications you ignored were Sollux trying to warn you that he’s been hearing your voice.

Another violent cough racks its way through you, and your hand bangs against the keyboard. There’s lines of purple popping up on the screen that you can’t read through your watery vision, and oh fuck, Gamzee, maybe you can--

You don’t even know if the message sends or not. You only have time to type something you hope resembles ‘HELP’ and mash vaguely at the enter button before the burning pains at your sides increase tenfold, and everything seems to stop.

Just for a moment. You can’t tell if it’s your thinkpan trying to salvage one last moment of consciousness before you’re dead forever, but for one moment everything stands still.

And then the illusion is broken, and you crash horns-first into darkness.

\- -

So sidetracked are you by the fact that you’re still alive and breathing (albeit raggedly, and wetly, ew, gross), that it takes you a while to realize that you’re even conscious in the first place. It takes even longer for you to become aware of what’s going on around you, and you think that maybe you should be concerned that someone is apparently in your hive, shouting your name and, from the sound of it, knocking a lot of things over. You try to muster the energy to panic for exactly two seconds before your thinkpan futzes out, and fuck. _Fuck,_ that is one fucking headache suddenly pounding its way merrily through your skull. You groan, involuntarily, and it grates against your throat painfully on its way out.

Thirsty. Water. Water sounds really good right now.

You must skip out on coherent thought for a few seconds, because the next thing you know there’s a familiar voice saying things you can’t quite understand, and cool hands shaking you gently.

Gamzee -- it’s Gamzee, of course, how didn’t you recognize him before -- tries to straighten you out where you lay on the floor (how did you get on the floor?), but the pain in your side flares unbearably as he does, and you hiss in protest. You try to curl up back into a ball, instinct telling you to keep yourself protected, to keep your soft squishy bits hidden, and you see absolutely no reason not to comply.

Cool, too cool hands are on your forehead, and you whine as you try to move your head away. You’re cold, so fucking cold suddenly, and you shiver in your sweater. Gamzee says something again, sounding distressed -- “Motherfuck, fuck, you got a fever, _shit_ , I gotta-” -- and there are hands lifting your sweater above your arms.

You try to croak out a _“No,_ ” but it’s too late, and after a moment of silence you crack open your eyes to look at Gamzee’s face.

Something looks off about him, but you just can’t figure out what it is that’s making him look so strange. But once you get past that unfamiliarity, you register his expression. It takes you a second to decipher it.

Shock, obviously. Surprise, motherfucker, bet you weren’t expecting an eyeful of gills. Gills dyed in your color. Cull-worthy shades of red stained into your sides, bare for him to see in all of their mutated glory. He meets your eyes after a moment, and you know you should be feeling scared; this is it, you’re going to die, you’re finally going to be culled.

All you feel is an all-encompassing, bone-deep exhaustion. 

You don’t try to run. You couldn’t move if you wanted to. Instead you keep looking at him, staring Gamzee down through half-open eyes. For a few seconds, there’s only the sound of your breathing, loud and fast.

“My gills.” You’re as surprised as he is when you speak, your voice throaty and cracked. You have no idea where these words are coming from. “They’re-” Oh fuck, shit, coughing again. You can feel Gamzee’s hands hovering over you helplessly as you fight your way through a thankfully less violent coughing fit. “-Infected,” you finally manage to say. “They’re infected.”

“Oh,” he says, and then “Ooohh _shiiit_.” He flaps his hands around for a moment, obviously unsure what to do. You shiver hard enough that your teeth chatter. God damn, you’re cold. And tired. You wish Gamzee would just cull you and get it over with already. You let your eyes close. A hand paps at your face.

“Shit, no, don’t be goin’ to sleep brother, you gotta stay up.”

“Fuck off,” you mumble. Gamzee keeps his hand cupped to your cheek for a moment longer, and it’s sick how much that makes you feel better even with how cold he is. You regret your words when he starts to pull away but find yourself with no energy to call him back.

“I’ll be right back before a brother can go up and miss me,” he says, as if sensing your thoughts. You don’t even know what the fuck he could be going to do, but whatever. It’s not like you can stop him. 

You hear nothing for a while, and then Gamzee muttering to himself, and then the clacking of your keyboard. You try to figure out what it is he might be doing before you give up. Whimsical chucklefuck. He could be looking up pie recipes for all you know.

“Can you hear me?” Eridan says. Eridan. What.

“Loud and clear, motherfucker.”

“Jesus Christ, I can hear him from here. Alright, tell me what he looks like.”

“Brother can’t keep his eyes open. He’s all fever-like.”

“And he said his gills are infected?” Eridan prompts. Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck, Gamzee told him, fuck, if you had the energy you would be flipping your shit all over the place. As of now, the only thing you can do is let their voices wash over you.

“Yeah, it’s why I called you up. I’m no fish, I got no idea what to do to make Karbro right again.”

More prompting on Eridan’s part, you think. A space of time where Gamzee describes what your gills look like. You don’t even know. It’s hard to stay on one train of thought. Everything seems to be going by too fast, like everything else has decided to speed up ever so slightly and no one bothered to give you the memo. It’s disconcerting as fuck.

Hands on your skin, too suddenly, and you jerk in surprise. Gamzee makes shooshing noises, speaking softly, “It’s alright brother, I got you, you’re fine, shhh, don’t you worry yourself none, you’ll be feelin’ better in no time, shhhh.” He picks you up, slow and careful, carries you somewhere. Lays you down on cold, cold tile. “I’ll be right back,” he says, and then, “Now what?”

Eridan says something you don’t catch. Gamzee must have gone to bring the husktop to...wherever you are. He wasn’t gone long enough, though. Time needs to stop fucking up and work properly again. There’s the sound of running water. Hmm, water. Water sounds really good right about now.

Gamzee sounds reluctant, and you struggle to focus on his words. All you hear is “--not too sure about--” before Eridan cuts him off, and he’s talking too fast, you can barely hear him, just brief snatches of words.

“--flush ‘em out--”

“--I don’t think--”

“--God damnit, Gam--”

“--but he--”

_“--just fuckin’ do it!--”_

Gamzee picks you up again, and dunks you under the water.

It’s cold and sudden -- everything is cold and sudden it feels like -- and you thrash, trying to get out. You take your previous thoughts back: water _no,_ water _bad_. You suspect that you must be too weak to do much damage, because Gamzee holds you under easily.

He’s going to drown you. You feel _betrayed_ , despite yourself. You don’t know why; you were expecting this. You can already feel your lungs burning from lack of oxygen, and you’re cursing yourself because you thought you meant more to each other than this. 

Fuck. Fuck you and your stupid thinkpan and your stupid mushy bloodpusher. You already forgive him.

The burning in your lungs increases with every second that ticks by, and your head is getting light again. The fire that is your gills flares and--

Gills. Your gills, that you have, that allow you to breathe underwater _God fucking damn it you are one stupid fucker._

You take a breath through your gills, and are blindsided by a strange combination of relief and debilitating agony. 

Bubbles rise from your throat as you choke out a sob, convulsing under Gamzee’s hands as acid burns its way all along your sides. Even as you vow to never do that again, you would rather _die_ first than do that again, your body decides to go ahead and do it again anyway. It’s horrible and terrible and it hurts and you just want it to stop--

There is a pressure, faintly, playing over your screwed-shut eyelids, lightly massaging the sore skin under your eyes, and--

_Oh._

You

You are being papped, by Gamzee Makara, as pain sluices its way through your everything; you are being papped by Gamzee Makara and you are slowly but surely calming the fuck down, and as you do so the pain in your gills gradually becomes less and less with every in-and-outward movement of the water, until they’re nothing more than a constant, dull ache.

1) You haven’t allowed yourself the luxury of using your gills for a long, long time.

2) You’re exhausted.

Both of these things are reason enough for you to stay under water even once Gamzee’s hand lifts up from your chest where it had been holding you down. You let bubbles of air escape your throat so that you won’t float up.

It’s quiet. Suspended. You can feel vibrations in the ceramic under your hands from Gamzee’s and Eridan’s voices, there enough for you to feel it but not enough for you to understand what they’re saying. When you open your eyes, just a little, you can see the ceiling of your ablutionblock. 

...Gamzee Makara just papped you. Tenderly. Passionately. His mitts gently caressed your face while you were losing your shit, in an act of undeniable paleness.

Eridan Ampora knows you’re a mutant, but instead of calling the drones, he decided to help you out, if you’re piecing things together right.

Your whole existence at the moment is basically just a random large number of query sticks with the occasional shout pole thrown in.

Gamzee’s head appears over the surface of the ablutions tub. This time you’re prepared when he reaches to lift you up, but even so you can’t help the hacking-out-your-lungs coughing as your head breaks the surface and you’re stuck between that weird place of using your lungs and your gills. Fuck. Gamzee pats your back as he lifts you out of the water fully. He makes small, worried-sounding shooshing noises until you finally manage to stop.

“He’s fine, Gam. That’s a perfectly healthy reaction. To be frank I would be worried if he _wasn’t_ doin’ it.” There’s the sound of a keyboard clacking from the other end of the mic. “Okay, here it is. Keep puttin’ him back in for around ten minutes every hour or when it starts hurtin’ him again, but be careful not to do it too long or too often ‘cause you don’t want him to overwork himself when he probably hasn’t used the damn things in forever. And it’s gonna suck but he’s gotta stay out’a the slime until his gills clear up all the way.” Eridan huffs. “Me an’ him are goin’ to have a talk about takin’ proper care’a himself when he’s better.”

“Thanks, fishbro,” Gamzee says quietly. You can’t see what expression he’s wearing. Your view is kind of blocked by your closed eyelids. “I owe you one for helping a brother out.”

“You don’t owe me anythin’. Just.” Eridan pauses for a second. “Keep me updated on how he’s doin’, yeah?”

“Sure thing.”

You’re not sure if they say anything else or not. You...

You don’t even realize you’ve fallen asleep until you wake up. Your shirt is still off, and your pants are still slightly damp (ugh) but at least your gills don’t hurt as bad as before. And hey, look at that, you don’t feel like you’re going to shiver so hard your bulge will fall off. That’s an improvement if you’ve ever heard one. But that stiffness in your limbs is still there, a ghosting pressure on your joints that lets you know you’re going to hate moving for the next while. When you blink open your eyes, it takes a few seconds for everything to come into focus.

You’re on the couch in your recreationblock. You’re not so far gone that you can’t recognize the posters on the far wall, even if you can’t quite read them. You take in the rest of the room, turning your head as minimally as possible as you do so, and stop when you see the figure sitting at the foot of the couch.

Is Gamzee just...staring at the wall? He’s certainly not sleeping; you’re pretty sure you just saw him blink.

“Hey,” you say, all cracked and raspy, and Gamzee jumps. It was quiet, for you, but it sounded especially loud in the silent room. Gamzee practically whips around to face you, and he smiles. There’s relief there, but it looks...slightly off. Nervous, maybe, although you don’t get why.

“Thanks,” you say, before he can speak. “For coming.”

“Aw, it wasn’t a problem, bro,” he says. “How you feelin’?”

“Better than when you first got here,” you say, which is an understatement. You’d barely been able to string a sentence together when he got here. Which reminds you. You squint at his face, trying to put it into better focus, and when you realize what you’re seeing, you blink in surprise. Well. When you realize what you’re _not_ seeing, to be more accurate. “Are you not wearing your paint?” you ask. Gamzee shrugs. That answers your question, you guess. 

“Too much in a rush to get here after you sent your message for me to bother with putting it on,” he says simply. Well, fuck. Now you feel bad.

“At least it’s a good thing I didn’t message you during the day,” you say, and oh no. Oh shit. You do not like the sound of that guilty laugh he’s doing right now. “Gamzee. Please tell me you didn’t walk all the way over here during the day.”

“Well, if it’s what you want to hear...”

“Oh my God,” you say; you can not _believe_ this stupid panrotted assclown. _“How?”_

“I just threw a blanket over my head that blocked out the worst of the light real good,” he says, having the gall to sound proud of himself. There is no way he managed to get all the way over here with a flimsy motherfucking blanket over his head without at _least_ getting some minor burns. 

“You could’ve burned yourself to a crisp,” you accuse him, and again he does nothing more than shrug.

“Would’ve been worth it,” he says, quietly, and he looks down and fiddles with his thumbs. Your bloodpusher gives a harsh _pang_ at his hunched-over figure; he’s as subtle as a cholerbear when it comes to his intentions and you can see _exactly_ what he’s doing. Offering himself up, saying _here I am Karbro,_ but at the same time going _I won’t say anything if you don’t._ He’s giving you an out. A chance to say yes or no.

At least. You _hope._

You hold up a hand.

Gamzee looks up and stares. God, you’ve been wrong about a lot of shit before but you want more than anything to not be wrong about this. You arm trembles from the effort of holding itself up, curse your weak sick fucking body, and it shakes all the way from your shoulder to the half-formed diamond of your pointer and middle fingers. He’s still staring. Fuck. Fuck, you fucked up, but it’s too late, you can’t take it back now.

When you say, “Pale for you,” your voice shakes only because your throat still hurts. It has absolutely nothing to do with the way that Gamzee still has not moved, still hasn’t said a single fucking word, you read him wrong, but what else would you expect, you get everything wrong, being wrong is the one thing you’re _good_ at, you--

The tips of two long, bony fingers connect with your shaking ones, steadying them, steadying you, clearing the self-loathing in your head enough for you to see the wide smile on Gamzee’s unpainted face.

And, well, if you smile back, you suppose you can forgive yourself, just this one time.

**Author's Note:**

> written for a prompt in celebration of a hundred followers on tumblr *brings out the party poppers* it was kind of hard to write this without mirroring splickedy's gamkar sickfic, but i think i managed c:


End file.
